


Be Okay

by supernatural_mondler (1DE3shipper)



Category: The West Wing
Genre: Angst, Canonical Character Death, Episode: s07e13 The Cold, Episode: s07e17 Election Day Part II, F/M, Gen, Hurt/Comfort, im sorry, protective dad leo
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-01-31
Updated: 2019-01-31
Packaged: 2019-10-19 19:07:37
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death, No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 3,470
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17607203
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/1DE3shipper/pseuds/supernatural_mondler
Summary: A conversation between Leo and Josh, the night of "The Cold". Josh gets some advice.





	1. The Cold

**Author's Note:**

> I posted this awhile ago on ff.net but I decided I wanted to post everything here too so here we are.

All in all, it had been a good day.

They had closed the gap entirely to Vinick, the Republican Senator had come down with a cold, the interruption to their campaign schedule so the candidate and Leo could meet with the President about the conflict in Asia had dampened his spirits only slightly, but everything just seemed to be going so  _well_  for them that Josh found himself enjoying the extra time sitting around and working with his staff. Oh yeah, and he had kissed Donna.

His head was still a little fuzzy, if he was honest. He probably couldn't even describe the events leading up to the kiss, or what immediately followed; all he knew was that he had spent all day feeling like, for various reasons, he was floating. And now it was night time, and he was starting to come back down.

And he was panicking.

He had missed out on going up to Donna's hotel room with her, through no fault of his own, he would add, and maybe that would have answered some questions, maybe it only would have let to more, but all Josh knew was that it was late, he was on his second drink, and he was way out of his depth.

"What are you still doing down here?"

Josh startled at the sound of Leo's voice as the other man sat down across from him.

"Could ask you the same thing," Josh replied, finishing off his drink and setting the glass down on the table. "You've got an early flight tomorrow."

"So do you," Leo countered. "Everyone else probably has right idea turning in early, you should go upstairs."

Josh waved him off and looked around the room, considerably less crowded than it was an hour ago, but still by no means empty. He contemplated ordering another drink but couldn't quite make eye contact with a waiter, so he turned back to Leo.

"Josh? Is everything alright?" Leo asked, clearly noticing his distraction.

"Hmm? Yeah, fine," Josh responded quickly. "It's just, you know, been a day."

"Don't I know it," Leo chuckled. "Never thought I'd still be galivanting across the country at this point in my life, yet here I am. I must have a death wish or something."

"Or something," Josh agreed absently, glancing around the room again, but this time for nothing in particular.

"Seriously, kid, what's going on?" Leo's tone turned serious, apparently catching on to his former deputy's frazzled thoughts.

"It's nothing," Josh brushed him off again. "It's…nothing. Sorry, just forget it."

" _Josh_ ," Leo warned.

"There was just a…thing," Josh said vaguely. "Its really not a big deal, Leo."

"A thing," Leo repeated.

"You probably don't wanna know," Josh shrugged. "Anyways, you should get to bed."

"Hey, now, would I have asked?"

"Leo…" Josh felt his resolve weakening. Thing is, Josh didn't do  _feelings_  well, never had. He didn't know how to talk about them, he just felt generally uncomfortable when the emotional stuff came up in conversation. It was probably why his relationships all seemed to fail. Good, bad, all of it; he tended to just shut down and hope everything went away on its own. But there was something different this time. For some reason, he needed to talk with  _somebody_. Donna would seem like the obvious choice, given that hers were the other feelings involved, except that he had maybe missed that window and was too much of a coward to go up there now and risk waking her up, so that was ruled out.

The thought of having this conversation with Leo felt an awful lot like, well, having  _the talk_  with your parents, because, he supposed, that's what this was. But he wasn't in middle school, he was a grown man, and objectively he  _knew_ that he had nothing to be ashamed of. Plus, if he didn't say something there was a good chance he would end up drinking the entire minibar in his hotel room and that really didn't seem like a productive coping strategy.

"If you really don't want to talk, tell me to go upstairs and I'll go," Leo gave him an out. "But this isn't campaign stuff that's bothering you."

"No," Josh finally admitted. "It's not."

"Well?"

"There was a thing," Josh began.

"So you've mentioned."

"Just a moment really, this morning, when the Times released the poll. Donna came in to give me the numbers and I guess things just got a bit, well, out of hand," Josh explained. "She was excited, I was excited, and I guess basically I ended up kissing her."

"Huh," Leo said after a moment. "I guess I'd figured you'd have done that already."

Josh's head snapped up to meet his mentor's gaze. " _What?_ "

"Oh come on, Josh, think about it," Leo rolled his eyes. "After all these years? You have to have known that people wondered about you two."

"Well, yeah, but…it was never like that," Josh protested.

"Josh," Leo prodded. "Are you really surprised?"

"No," Josh admitted. "I feel like I've been floating all day. It's a combination of everything, really, but I think it just freaked me out, because it didn't freak me out? I know that doesn't make any sense…"

"Sure it does," Leo argued.

"It does?"

"It's you and Donna," Leo explained as if that was an explanation. "It was bound to happen eventually."

That really made Josh start. "That's…exactly what she said."

"Well, Donna's a smart girl," Leo shrugged, casual as anything. Meanwhile Josh's head felt like it was spinning.

"Okay, yeah, but…now what?" he tried to wrap his head around, well everything. "Like…now what?"

"What do you mean?" Leo asked.

"I mean…now what?"

"Well what do you wanna do?"

"Leo, if I knew that do you think I'd be down here getting drunk when I have to be up in five hours?" Josh snapped, and immediately regretted it. "Sorry, I'm…my head's all over the place, that wasn't fair." He took a deep breath. "I never even allowed myself to think about this, you know? It just wasn't even an option, because it's Donna, so it never mattered what I wanted to do. But now…"

"It's always mattered, Josh," Leo countered. "At any moment, you could have made a choice. Choosing to ignore it was a choice. Probably not a great one, but a choice nonetheless. But now it is time for you to think about it. So, what do you want to do?"

"I like her a lot, Leo," Josh admitted. "Like, a  _lot_. And today…it just felt like that's what we were supposed to be doing. It happened so naturally, then I spent the rest of the day freaking out about it, while she was being so calm, and then she might have asked me back to her hotel room—"

"She asked you back to her hotel room?" Leo interrupted. Josh hadn't actually intended to mention that, there were some things Leo probably  _didn't_ want to know.

"It didn't end up working out, obviously," Josh assured him, gesturing to their surroundings to remind him that Josh very obviously was  _not_ in Donn's hotel room. "I don't even know what to say to her now. How do I—how can I even begin to tell her what I want when I have absolutely no idea myself?"

Leo sighed, and Josh figured he had had enough of the conversation. He didn't blame him; Josh was about sick of himself too. But instead of getting up and leaving, Leo stood and circled to the other side of the table to take the seat next to Josh.

"Josh, you and Donna make sense in a way very few people do," Leo said.

"But we don't—"

Leo held up a hand before he could interrupt. "It's never been my place to say, but the rest of us aren't nearly as dumb as you might think we are. For years it's been obvious that she makes you happy, she keeps you sane, she keeps you from flying off the wall, and god knows how she's managed to put up with you for so long. You deserve someone like that, Josh. You don't have to push people away because you're afraid they'll leave anyways, or because you're worried about things changing. It's okay, Josh. Things are changing all around you, every day. Big changes. A lot of them are changes you yourself helped create. They're not always bad. It's all about taking the chance. You deserve to be happy, and Donna makes you happy, and nothing else really matters, right?"

"Right," Josh echoed, but the words felt like they were just bouncing around inside his head, unable to fully register. Because there was  _nothing_  about him and Donna that made sense; they had known each other for ten years. Surely it was too late now to go about making any big changes in their relationship, especially since they had just managed to rebuild their rapport.

"Josh, listen to me," Leo broke him from his trance, waiting until he had Josh's full attention. "You don't have to be afraid of this. You deserve to be happy. You deserve to have something for yourself. Donna's a good girl, she cares about you a lot. I have no doubt that whatever is supposed to happen with the two of you is going to happen naturally, just like this morning, okay?" Josh nodded absently. "You don't have to know exactly what you want Josh, you don't have to put it into words if you can't. But don't fight it. Just let it happen, whatever it is, and I promise you it'll be okay. You two always are. Do you trust me?"

"I—yeah. Yeah, okay," Josh nodded absently, a bit dizzy from the sheer volume of thoughts that had been tumbling around in his brain all day. Leo had only added about three hundred more, yet somehow he felt more at peace than he had since that morning. He couldn't help it really, it was ingrained into his DNA to trust Leo, the man had never let him down before.

"Good," Leo nodded, standing up and offering a hand to pull Josh up too. "Now, we both have about five hours before we need to be back down here to fly off to god knows where you've got us going, so I suggest we both go upstairs and get whatever sleep we can, while we can. Sound good?"

"Yeah," Josh agreed, pulling a few bills out of his wallet to leave as a tip before allowing Leo to tug him to his feet. The exhaustion hit him all at one, and suddenly he wanted nothing more than to get to his room upstairs. Well, he supposed he would rather get to  _Donna's_  room upstairs, but that would be a step for another night, with any luck, so a few hours rest would have to do for now.

The elevator arrived quickly, and they rode up in silence. Leo's floor came first, and the doors opened with a ding.

"Night, Josh," Leo nodded as he stepped off. "I mean it. Get some sleep. Your day is over."

"Yeah, g'night," Josh responded. "And Leo?"

Leo turned around, leaning into the door so it wouldn't close on them.

"Thanks," Josh finished. "For, y'know…thanks."

Leo smiled warmly, the way he did when he wasn't Leo McGarry, White House Chief of Staff or candidate for Vice President of the United States, but Leo, his father's best friend and the closest thing to family Josh had in Washington. Josh couldn't help but smile back. It felt like he had been smiling all day, really, but this one felt different. All day he'd been manic, soaring between peaks and higher peaks, entirely out of control. This, though, this was peace, comfort, and confidence. Something that settled over his entire being. Not artificial mania, but true happiness. Stability. Josh really did feel like he would be okay.

"Yeah," Leo nodded, as if reading his thoughts. "You're doing just fine, kid."

And if Leo said it, it must be true.


	2. Election Day Part II

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> A conversation Josh wishes he could've had. Election Day pt 2.

Josh looked around the empty room, looking at but not really seeing the traces of Leo all over it: the suit in the corner ready to be warn, his glasses on the table, a glass of water. Things Leo would never touch again.

It was thoughts like that that threatened to break what little of his composure Josh had maintained throughout the day. He felt empty, he felt numb, he felt like he was watching everything happen underwater, like it wasn't really  _him_.

He had come in here for…god, why had he come in here? He had called the front desk to have Leo's room cleaned, but he could have done that from anywhere in the hotel, he didn't have to torture himself by standing here, surrounded by the last things his mentor would have seen, the leftover scraps from the paramedics' fruitless efforts to save his life, but he just couldn't move. He was frozen in place, leaning against the couch with his hands in his pockets, unable to make sense of anything in his life.

He hoped this was all a dream. One big twisted, sick dream and he would wake up tomorrow and go back to work at the White House and Leo would yell at him for  _something, anything_. Josh would give up every single thing that had happened in the last year if it meant Leo was still there. No contest.

"You were right," he said out loud, his voice sounding strained even to his own ears. "It was so easy. It just happened, just like you said it would. It was—"

He broke off with a shuddering breath, because he didn't know. He didn't know anything anymore. It was Donna, of course it was Donna, but then Josh had gone from the highest of highs to the worst night of his life, and the night wasn't even over yet and he just  _didn't know_.

"All I wanted to do was make you proud," he tried again. "I don't even know if I did that. I hope I did.  _God_  I really hope I did enough for you. That I can…keep doing enough for you. I don't know…I don't  _know_. I need you to tell me. Why—"

The room grew blurry and Josh realized absently that he was crying, something that really shouldn't surprise him after the intense buildup of emotions he had experienced not just today, but the past year. He sniffed and blinked, his vision just blurred again but the tears refused to fall. It felt wrong to cry, somehow, like it wouldn't solve anything. Josh supposed he might just be too numb.

"I just hope… _god_ ," he whispered shakily. "I hope…I don't know how to do this without you. I'm already so lost…you were right, about everything, every time and now—" He sniffed again, looking up towards the ceiling. "You didn't even get to see. I was so  _happy_  this morning, Leo. And I didn't even get to tell you. You probably…you would've acted like it wasn't a big deal, but it was. It is. And then you would've told me where the hell I go from here. I could've used that because,  _god_  Leo, I don't have a damn clue. Not a damn—"

His voice cracked as it gave out, and Josh squeezed his eyes shut and hung his head, trying desperately to retain control of himself. He was vaguely aware of someone else entering the room, and he channeled his focus into a few steady breaths. Donna came closer, but didn't say anything, didn't look like she was going to say anything, and Josh was grateful that she could read him so well as to know that he still needed a minute.

"I called housekeeping," Josh finally sniffled, hating the way his voice still shook. "I don't want Mallory coming here and finding the paramedic stuff." He didn't know why he started with that, it seemed like such a trite explanation, but it was the only one his brain could come up with. At least, the only one that wouldn't reduce him to an embarrassing, sobbing mess on the spot.

"We won Texas," Donna replied after a moment. "California would put us over." And of course, there was still an election happening as they spoke. Somehow, the rest of the world hadn't stopped the minute Leo's heart did. Like Josh's world had. Thinking about the election just seemed so…trivial at the moment. Months and months of hard work and for what? What did it all mean if Leo McGarry wasn't there at the helm, shaping the future of America in every way imaginable. It felt so  _wrong_  to continue counting electoral votes, when all Josh wanted was to lock himself away for a few days, or maybe forever.

"You've done a remarkable thing," she continued. "Win or lose. An extraordinary thing." Then how come Josh felt so useless? He was used to feeling useless, of course, there were any number of things he had learned he couldn't control, that he just had to sit back and let them run their course. But he had never felt like this. This was a different kind of uselessness, like he  _should_  be able to do something, but he was paralyzed while the world spun out of control around him and all he could do was watch.

"I talked him into this. Into joining the ticket," Josh rasped, staring straight ahead, doing his best to keep his face expressionless. He hadn't even identified that particular emotion until he said it, but of course he felt guilty. Every step along the way, whenever Leo had stumbled, Josh had tried passing it off as his own failure. After all, it was true. He had been the one to convince Leo to sign on, and Josh couldn't help but feel guilty, just another way he had let Leo down, and now…

"Nobody ever talked Leo into doing anything he didn't want to do," Donna reminded him, and that sounded exactly like what Toby said—albeit with a little less tact—before the VP debate. Josh hadn't forced him into doing anything, but it had been his idea, and he was the one who asked, had pushed for it, even, and for that reason Josh couldn't shake the feeling that he was responsible for this, that if Leo hadn't pushed himself so hard he would have been fine, that if he had stayed in Washington someone would have noticed the signs and he would be okay. He would be alive.

"And he'd want you upstairs, not down here," she continued softly, and underneath the guilt and numbness and grief, Josh felt his heart constrict at the way she continued talking to him, encouraging and gentle as always, and he felt so grateful to have someone in his life who knew him like she did. He suspected Leo had known this all along; of course he had, the man knew everything.  _You and Donna make sense in a way very few people do_  he had said. At that moment Josh knew exactly what Leo had been talking about.

"You belong up there, it's your night." It didn't feel like his night. This was just as much Leo's night as it was Josh's, and without the other man there to share it, the idea of celebrating felt so  _wrong_. The idea of doing anything felt completely wrong.

He wouldn't be where he was today without Leo, either professionally or personally. He never would have come to work for Bartlet, without the man's unending patience he would have been unemployed years ago, and he certainly wouldn't have had the courage to embark on this crazy journey with Matt Santos if not for Leo's constant encouragement and guidance. And now, whatever happened the rest of the night, Josh knew his ride wasn't over, something would come next. But he wouldn't have Leo around for that. He had spent almost all of his professional career striving to impress the man. It was what he knew how to do. Without that…Josh just felt so  _lost_. He  _needed_  it, he  _needed_ Leo.

Donna came closer, her hand gently brushing his cheek before resting on the side of his neck. Josh leaned into her touch, squeezing his eyes shut against the emotions threatening to explode from him.

"He was so proud of you Josh," she whispered and that was it. Donna pulled him to her and he just went, resting his head against her chest and she stroked his back as he finally broke down. How could anything be okay after this?

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I must have watched this scene over 15 times while writing this story and let me tell you it doesn't hurt any less (I literally had to stop and cry while writing). It's a little all over the place, but please let me know what you think!


End file.
